Choices have consequences
 

THE MONETARY WORTH OF YOUR COLLEGE DEGREE
Neal Boortz
Some of my listeners just can't stand it when I get into my "choices have consequences" mode. So many people just don't want to believe that they are right where they are, economically, socially and in terms of their health, principally because of the cumulative effect of the choices that they have made in their lives.
Some of the most important choices you will make involve education. In the early years it's whether or not you're even going to go to school, and if you do go whether or not you're going to actually apply yourself. Later on you will have to decide if you are going to continue to college ... and what your major will be. CNN has published a survey showing starting salaries for college graduates with various four-year degrees.
]http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/15/pf/college/starting_salaries/?cnn=yes
At the top of the list you will find chemical engineering cashing in at $54,000 a year. Electrical, computer, mechanical, and aerospace engineering all pay over $50,000 a year to start. At the bottom of the list we find liberal arts, and at the bottom of the liberal arts list we find ... what else but teaching. Teaching comes in at $29, 733. Here's some more of the list.
Accounting (private): $44,564
Management trainee: $35,811
Teaching: $29,733
Consulting: $49,781
Sales: $37,130
Accounting (public): $41,039
Financial/Treasury analysis: $45,596
Software design/development: $53,729
Design/construction engineering: $47,058
Registered nurse: $38,775
You will notice that you don't see History, English, Social Work or other such disciplines on that list. If you make the choice to go after those majors, you are making a decision to limit your income potential pretty much throughout your life.
Now ... about the teachers. Low salary, right? Well what would you expect for a profession that fights accountability with its every breath? Chemical engineer, accountant, Registered nurse ... all of these people must be accountable for what they do. If they don't do their job well, it's off to the classified. Teachers? Can you spell tenure? Can you spell NEA? That would be the acronym for the National Education Association, the teacher's union. Every year this union meets to discuss and implement new ways and ideas to make sure that teachers are not held accountable for their successes or failures in the classroom.
A few more points to make about the teaching profession. Studies have shown that generally speaking the college freshman who decide to pursue a degree in education come from the bottom of their entering class. By this I mean that their SAT scores are at the bottom compared to the SAT scores for other entering freshmen. Likewise, college graduates who opt for a master's degree in education generally score at the bottom of their class in the GRE, the Graduate Record Exam, the SAT-like test that goes a long way to deciding who does and who does not get into graduate school.
Bottom line? We have the bottom of the entering college freshman class .. and the bottom of the entering graduate school class out there teaching our children. Then they gripe about low salaries. They write comments on report cards like "Johnny are learning to read real good." and expect to be earning the big bucks.
Oh ... and don't forget that extended summer vacation

Maybe the low salary makes them reluctant to be accountable. Maybe the low salary self-selects those who have the lowest SATs.

Besides, lets see the justification for the appalingly low rate of pay for social workers (who deal with the crap you don't want to).

Social Work..same low standards/requirements as teachers and attract the same type folks.

Lets pay the employees at GM more so they'll make better cars!

zZZZZing! :D

What standards would you prefer?

Do you actually believe it is a low skill job? Should it be a low skill job?

I can't really tell from your reply if you think that social work should be lowly valued, and hence attracts those of low standards, etc.

Or if you believe that it just happens that those who have low standards choose it, and therefore it is low paying? This is the "choices" you talk about, I think.

Well all the school'n that goes on, here on this board, proves that point. :D

Some of us do teach for the sake of teaching.
In my case I teach (part time) at a local College where I got my start, and I felt the need to give-back a bit.

The article tells me that employment is mostly about supply and demand. If almost anyone can qualify to enter a field (low entry standards) with the lowest preparation (low entry grades and scores)..and then almost anyone can easily complete the education requirements (low aptitude/education requirements), and there are no standards once working (teachers..tenure, etc)...Then the market is flooded with "qualified" people and there is no "culling" of inferior candidates/employees.. That effectively lowers the price "value" that their services demand. Subsequently any higer achievers who might have been attracted to the profession either decide otherwise before even starting school in that area (due to low wages/esteem) and most others achievers that actually attempt to work in the area are driven away by the liberal politics of the ignorant losers that remain or are rejected by the tenure system because they do not "fit in.".

My question is.. why does the article emphasize education as a way to increase salary, then go on to bash those that give that to you?

and my comment on the teachers salary, is that it is one of the few areas that you aren't so much accountable for your results, because their sucess or failure has many many more factors than just the quality of your teaching. I personally don't know HOW you can quantify the quality of teaching, sucess of the students on standardized tests does not count.


Note: I am not a teacher, though I do working a teaching institution, so I do see the highs and lows

CIS Degreed Network engineer $ = Porsche Mechanic $

So I fix cars and hung the degree in my bathroom.


AFJuvat

One thing to consider relative to teacher's salaries, though, is that they are typically contracted to only work something like 196 days per year or something like that. If you take teacher's salaries and convert that into an equivalent hourly rate for a person working 260 days per year (like most of the rest of us) the numbers don't look as bad.

I'm not downplaying the role of teachers or their salaries, but I think it is important to realize that even if they work an *average* of 10 hours a day, they're not putting in near as many hours per year as the rest of us.

Mike

If you add up the benefits, pension, etc.. it's not a bad gig. I know several teachers and most are pretty happy with their decision.

In the bigger picture, the way to earn more income is to go on to graduate school. On average, those with graduate degrees earn considerably more than those with undergraduate degrees. And, of course, many of those higher-income persons have graduate degrees in law or business, and many of those got there via the much-maligned liberal arts undergraduate degree.

Clearly, though, if a college kid is planning to never go to graduate school, then the engineering and business fields are going to pay more. In that respect, the article is correct and he cites the evidence for it.

What I don't see any evidence cited for, though, is that lower-income professions have lower accountability or that teachers have lower SAT and GRE scores. I don't have an opinion on whether these claims are correct or not, but I am kind of suspicious that Boortz doesn't show any data for his assertions. Especially the "lower SAT/GRE" claims - there should be hard evidence for that.

It is a common rhetorical trick to start by presenting an argument that your audience will agree with, with lots of evidence to bolster your credibility, and then slide into your real argument, with a lot of hand-waving so that your audience won't notice that the evidence suddenly stopped.

Do you think Boortz knows this trick?

Re: Choices have consequences
 

I would think this is obvious. What does go unmentioned is that you only go around once. I would not trade my major and college experience for all the tea in China. And would rather scrubb toilets than get an accounting degree. (Not that there is anything wrong with an accounting degree.)

Worried about your personal economics? Open a junkyard. Seeking social status? You'll get further by marrying the right girl.. Health?? Watch that stress in the high paying professional world..

Do what you love and love what you do - that may get you a rusty 924 or a stable full of cup cars - but you will live a happier life and go to your maker with less excuses..

Re: Choices have consequences
 

History Major here in his late 30's with a six figure income and two Porsches in the driveway. SmileWavy

Read "Rich Dad Poor Dad" and "The Millionaire Next Door"...anybody who is expecting to get "rich" from a job is better off playing the lottery IMO. Wealth comes from frugality and smart investing...or, to quote RDPD...

"A job is just a temporary solution to a permanent problem."

I believe most successful people will become wealthy regardless of the college degree choice and visa versa. If you are expecting your degree to make you wealthy, then you've already made a critically bad "choice".

Do you really measure success by financial reward?

Are successful ( as in earning a lot of money) because you have a qualification or becuase you are talented?

How do those well paid sportsmen who are real role models for vast numbers of people fit into the picture.

AS ever its easy to bash those who make a choice which does not fit the presenter's persepctive.

In my little world there is a very apt saying...

'Those who can, do.
Those who cannot, teach and those who can do neither criticise.....'

Seems like our Mr Boortz fits into the later class...

you mean losers?

Was there a race?

evidently so...

oh wait...now you're playing the race card. Nice job :p

LOL


Teaching does attract losers.

So does accounting, realestate, medicine, investment banking, baseball, politics ....

The hopeful part is, smart people learn regardless of bad teaching. The not so smart students gain a piece of paper, which doesnt reflect that theyjust squeaked by . . . lets them get a cushing govt job some where. .. . or they're your doctor.

it all works out. :cool:

Seems to me that the point made is not in the least contradicted by the responses. Clearly one's choices have consequences. If a person chooses to drop out of school in the 8th grade...chances are pretty good that the person will never have the finacial success of a person who goes to Grad school....Although there may be some exceptions...rap muscians..drug dealers, etc. Obviiously other choices...brilliant investing, starting a successful business, striking oil, or marrying rich are also choices...but certainly no sure thing.
The bottom line is that these folks make the poor choices that have clear consequences...and then whine the rest of their life that they are not paid enough, treated well enough, are not provided for by the govt enough. That is what makes them losers. Ther fate was their choice...and most took the (short term) easy way out at the expense of the long term. It is not just about education choices..but marrying young, having a dozen kids, getting high interest credit cards/loans, not saving money for the future/hard times, etc. One or two bad choices can be overcome with hard work and sacrifice...sometimes

Well, yeah. But noone's perfect :D

Some people are less aware of the consequences than others. Some end up having to make those decisions through bad luck. Some are restricted in their choices by circumstance - yeah, I mean poverty or lack of means. Finally, some people aren't that smart - not everyone can gain tertiary qualifications.

And I can't and won't condemn them for those reasons.

Poor choices or choices were what you want to do actually outweighs the financial rewards...after all many here could be far richer (in pure financial terms) that they are but the do something they enjoy doing....

I'm a liberal arts degree holder and I'm doing just fine, thank you very much. Three of my sisters are school teachers and all three are very talented and respected. Frankly, just as you don't go into medicine for greedy reasons, same with teaching. You go into it because you want to teach.

I didn't see any reference to a chem/philo double degree major? I guess it is worth the goat skin it was printed on...

I should have stuck to music, at least they get the girls!

Every liberal I have ever met says the same thing...then whines because you do not want to pay more in taxes...far more than they pay...enough to taxes to cover their share for their choices.

why is it that the BHL love to tax and spend but they don't like to get taxed? They just want to tax the folks who made it?

separate note - flintstone, I'll be in Vegas May 17-19, wanna drink a few beers and a lot more lies?

Mike
If I am in town it would be great! I am travelling some for work in May...and don't have the dates worked out yet (not my choice). PM me in early May. Hopefuly I will have things sorted out by then and can give you a firm answer.
Stoney

cool - I will.

Every time this question of teacher accountability arises, we hear the same blah blah blah...

Here's my question...How do we make teachers and their work more accountable? You gotta know that standardized test can't possibly be the measure, after all any 'educated' person will know the following scenario...

Government middle school teacher in Central LA School District vs. government middle school teacher in Los Virgenes School District -very different kids and parents with very different expectations and experiences resulting in a "gap" in test scores...

This is a bigger issue than some (many?) "bad" teachers.

Accountability is clearly needed - there are some pretty poor performing teachers out there, as there are in any occupation, but test results will not be the validation for either a) increasing pay b) improving quality of teachers c) removing the "bad" teachers.

Hell, I've seen many poor teachers that have had kids achieving great results in tests but that had nothing to do with that year's teacher. It's about those children's experiences over many years. Likewise I've seen many great teachers who have made a huge impact on children's self-esteem in the course of year but this won't translate to a huge improvement in their GPA that year.

As a parent I take responsibility for my own children's education and I hope that the school system will reinforce it, color it, broaden it, but ultimately I see it as my job (read: responsibility) to educate my own children. That means being there every night, every weekend to guide them, discipline them, stimulate them, provide them my values as a guide, and provide opportunities for them. My kid's school does a great job of providing many things I can't like a huge library and extensive sport programs but they can only provide a middle road educational system because under the existing way of teaching to large numbers of children, education is pitched to the middle ground or slightly lower.

Unfortunately very few parents are willing to commit to (afford) alternative educational philosophy that can do better (eg Constructivism, Multiple Intelligences or IB programs). Governments are unwilling to commit either, and a lot of it comes down to the COST of smaller class sizes and better use of technologies.

Anyhow..now I'm starting to answer the question I posed...what do you think are the ways teachers can be held accountable, that are measurable, equitable and consistent?

PS.. yes I am a teacher, I do get summer holidays which are taken up for four weeks with (as an example this year) a workshop for two weeks 8.30 - 5pm on Langauge Arts, one week (same schedule) on teaching Arts, and one week at my school working on the school development plan. That leaves four weeks of which two are holidays with my kids and two weeks planning lessons, developing curriculum and buying resources (with my own money) for next year. I will also take time to update my 1st aid skills for 3 days. And for those who say I don't work many hours a day... well I start at 7.20am and leave approx 4.15 each day. I have a half hour for lunch three days and have yard duty for the other two. Last Friday night I held a school sleepover, next Friday night is the Science Fair, the week after that I am at school camp for three days and nights, the next week I have the evening school concert and fundraiser, I coach basketball and volleyball at our school on my own time two days a week and attend two focus groups on my own time monthly. Staff meetings are conducted after school on Mondays. I tutor two kids on Wednesday after school on my own time for no fees. Every weekend, either Friday, Saturday or Sunday night I plan for the next weeks lessons for approx 2-3 hours (leisurely admittedly). I would have on average on parent meeting every second week before school starts. My collegues are all pretty much the same as I.

I like my job! I am not excited by the pay, but I feel rewarded in other ways. Guess I am a loser tho
:rolleyes:

We are pretty much forced to pay the government large amounts of money to educate our children...which pretty much forces most parents to send their children to government schools. Every attempt to divert some of the money the govt takes (vouchers, etc) to create competition via private (better and often less expensive) schools if fought off by the NEA and their liberal cronies. Of course we expect accountability! Why would a teacher not be expected to be accountable for their work/product like any other employee of most any other business?

I expect most of us work far more than 8 hours a day also...with far less time off. (I can't remember the last day I worked less than 12 hours and I get 13 days of vacation per year)

Call yourself a loser if you like...I would probably agree if you are one of those who go into a profession that is known for low pay and whine all the time about it and how others who made different choices should be penalized to compensate. If you like your job enough to accept the pay without blaming everyone else...that is a different matter.

I would hope a person in your position to influence children is telling them the truth...that, like the thread is titled...."choices have consequences." And if they choose to underperform or select their educational/employment goals...they should be prepared to accept the consequences and not expect others to glady bail them out.

I can't even be bothered picking up on so many of your points in that last post (who's whining now...sounds like you are stuck in a job with poor conditions eh?) but lets ask the question again...

What methods to you suggest would make teachers more accountable assuming this will lead to measurable differences in the quality of education?

By the way, I am NOT against teachers being more accountable. It's just how it is done and why, that causes some red herrings.

No whining here. It is exactly what I signed up for. I have a great job. It is exactly what I chose to do, went to school to do, and has exactly the expected compensation. Choices have consequences....good or bad. I was just making a comparison to teachers who seem to have such a tough life (per your earlier post). Most seem quite out of touch with reality. Too bad since they are such a big influence on our children. Very few of us have the Ward Cleaver ..in at 9, home at 5 jobs. Folk who become teachers are exposed to the profession their entire life and have little room to act suprised at the hours, responsibilities, or compensation and even less to complain about others who chose different paths or expect them to happily pay a huge portion of their salaries for questionable service.
I am glad you see it as your job to educate your children...but that seem like a cop out for those of us who have no choice but pay huge money each year to have government schools educate our children. Most of the "educational time" we have with our kids is to try to counteract/unteach the anti-competition, anti-religion, procommunist teachings and sex mis-education that government schools seem to do such a good job doing..leaving little time to teach more reading, writing, and arithmetic...which they do such a poor job of.

Imagine being forced by the govt to turn over your Porsche to a shop for six to eight hours a day to work on for 12 years ..pay hundreds of thousands of dollars while the mechanic called every day to whine for more money ..and remind you that fixing your car is really your responsibility. In the end...your RSR comes back looking like an AMC pacer with a Yugo engine, runs like crap, and the mechanic implies it is somehow your fault.

As far as your "measurable" question...If teaching is your business, it seems you should be able to come up with some way to measure your work. Since you claim that grades, test scores, etc are not fair measures.....why not allow the ultimate measure of any enterprise...competition? Let any parent who chooses opt out of the system and take the money (expenditure per student) to the school of their choice. You will find out real fast which schools and teacher are capable and which are not. The very fact that the schools/teachers/liberals/NEA fight this tells me that they already know the answer.

I'm sure there are plenty of capable, hard working teachers. They have nothing to fear by accountability or competition. In fact, it would seem that they would support it because it would probably make their jobs easier and increase their compensation...while weeding out their incompetent contemporaries and poorly run/operated schools and attracting better talent. Monopolies are doomed to mediocrity by design.

Your the one saying teachers should be more accountable (which I don't disagree with necessarily) but come on, answer my question (for the third time) seeing you seem to know it all...

What methods/avenues do YOU suggest would make teachers more accountable assuming this will lead to measurable differences in the quality of education?

Your the whining about teachers so what's the answer?

Of course I could come up with accountability measures but you would never be happy with them anyway. So step up...
:rolleyes:

And just to clarify, my kids do go to government schools which I pay (huge?????) money for, just like you apparently.

I too chose my teaching career AFTER careers in journalism and rereation management spanning 11 years. Like I said before, I like my job, it has its rewards. Still, I'd like more money, like most people
;)

Could you elabortate on this. What anti-religion, procommunist, or sex miseducation are you referring to?

As far as your "measurable" question...If teaching is your business, it seems you should be able to come up with some way to measure your work.
[/QUOTE]
As mentioned above, there doesn't seem to be any good measure on how a particular teacher can be uniquely measured for the year. There are proposals to have a standardized test. I guess you could administer one at the start of the school year and one at the end, and try to establish how well the students learned from a teacher, but I would expect all you get is how well the students learned the answers to the test. And I suspect all students' scores would still be a bell shaped curve and so what have you learned?

Since you claim that grades, test scores, etc are not fair measures.....why not allow the ultimate measure of any enterprise...competition? Let any parent who chooses opt out of the system and take the money (expenditure per student) to the school of their choice. You will find out real fast which schools and teacher are capable and which are not. The very fact that the schools/teachers/liberals/NEA fight this tells me that they already know the answer.
[/QUOTE]

It is not feasible. Let's say all 500 students at school A want to go to 4 other schools. First off, the other schools do not have classrooms for them or teachers, unless you propose that any student who wants to opt out gives a least a years notice. Then there would be merely a reshuffling, at great expense, of teachers and the purchase of temporary classrooms. It would be a shell game.

Then there are charter schools and you don't find out until two years later when the school closes and your kids haven't kept up to speed that, oops, this wasn't the answer. Do search on charter schools in Florida.

The only way I know to remove poor teachers is to get invovlved in your local school board, and be active in the PTA, and lobby the principal to transfer a poor teacher.

It is quite feasible and simple...issue each family vouchers for the amount that the public school receives to educate their child. Let them use the voucher at any school they please. The good schools/teachers will flourish...the others will close/find more appropriate employment.

Sure, lobby a Principal to fire an incompetent teacher...LOL..like that is going to do anything...everyone closes ranks.
If that worked, schools would not be filled with them. The only way to get rid of an incompetent teacher would be via a very expensive law suit...and anyone who can afford that has probably already taken their kids out and put them in a better school.

Judging from stoner's posts on this board it appears his kids would be better off with an incompetant teacher than stuck at home with dad. :rolleyes:

Judging from 150HP930's posts it appears that it would be better if he had no children and let the defective genes stop with this generation.

I always wonder about that; I mean someone has to graduate at the bottom of every Med school class, right? What becomes of these dip*****s? :confused: